Today, on the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, we present to you this account written by David Satterfield, a Management Analyst at NARA in St. Louis: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Most are familiar with those words from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech of December 8, 1941 before Congress, which led to a formal declaration of war against Japan. The passage, of course, refers to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but the tension, rage, and enhanced sense of duty felt by those who survived the attack, and were left to protect the base, cannot be summed up in a single quote. Fortunately, records held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provide significant insight into the mindset of the survivors of the attack, its effect on other service members, and lessons learned after the fact. For a group of six Navy pilots assigned to Fighting Squadron Six (attached to the U.S.S Enterprise at the time), on the night of December 7, that survivors mindset tragically resulted in their being fired upon by their brothers-in-arms on the ground. That night, Ensigns Herbert Hugo Menges, Gayle Louis Hermann, David Reid Flynn, and James Ganson Daniels III, along with Lieutenants Junior Grade Francis Frederick Hebel and Eric Allen, Jr. flew, with their lights on, toward Ford Island around 9:00 PM. Although forces in the area were purportedly told to expect the approach of the planes, as the pilots neared the island, ground and ship-borne anti-aircraft guns opened up, downing all but one aircraft. Lieutenant Commander H.L. Young, also a pilot attached to the U.S.S. Enterprise, had been subjected to friendly fire earlier in the day, but managed to land safely and gained access to the Ford Island Field Control Tower that night. From this tower, he attempted to guide the pilots in, but was unable to communicate with them due to a low-power transmitter in the tower. Ensign Daniels managed to elude the fire by temporarily blinding the gunners with his lights. He then turned his lights off, lowered his altitude, and made another pass, landing safely. He, and two other pilots, Ensigns Flynn and Hermann, survived the ordeal. Ensign Menges and Lieutenants Junior Grade Hebel and Allen, Jr. did not fare so well. Each was shot down, and while only Menges died that night in the crash, both Hebel and Allen, Jr. died of their injuries the next day. In his “Report of Action with Japanese Air Force at Oahu, T.H., December 7, 1941”, Lieutenant Commander Young, made many insightful points, one of which stressed, “The importance of some means of positive identification of own airplanes, other than visual signals cannot be overemphasized”. The documents associated with this tragic event exemplify the impact that military records can have, both in preserving the memory of significant events and in increasing our awareness of and empathy for the individuals involved. The Naval Aviation Training Jackets of these veterans are currently being transferred to the National Archives at Saint Louis; upon receipt of the records in their entirety, their availability will be announced on our social media pages. The Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs) of Ensigns Menges and Hermann, and Lieutenants Junior Grade Hebel and Allen, Jr. are now public records available at the National Archives at Saint Louis. Ensigns Daniels and Flynn continued their military service and their OMPFs will be opened to the public in 2032 and 2036, respectively (62 years after their separations dates). Legal custody of those records remains with the Department of the Navy, however, information currently releasable under the Freedom of Information Act may be obtained by writing to the National Personnel Records Center. The National Archives at College Park maintains the World War II Navy Action Reports; that office also holds the records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel Casualty Branch; copies of these documents may be obtained by writing to that office.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:22:22 +0000
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